Time to get some fun in the graveyard. The Singing Busts, the Hitchhiking Ghosts, Little Leota and other characters are copyrighted to the ride. I have given some of the ghosts, characters. Anyway, I'm going to lead you foolish readers in the way of Grim Grinning Ghosts come out to socialise. I've changed Little Leota. She will not be three inches tall but the size of a normal 14 year old girl. Oh, and since you can only put two categories for a story, I'd thought I would mention that this is a romance as well.
Ghost Host: Foolish readers, where have you been. The graveyard has been so quiet waiting for you. But now that you are here, the ghost jamboree is starting to play, the ghosts are socialising and there is a tea party waiting in store.
Chapter 4: Grim Grinning Ghosts Come Out To Socialise
The moon climbed high over the dead trees, and Kim and Sakura walked down towards some iron gates.
"Hey girls! Wait up!" cried Jody as he leapt off the balcony and ran towards the girls.
"What took you so long, Jody?" asked Sakura impatiently.
"Nothing," Jody lied.
"Uh-huh. Anyway, let's get to this graveyard," said Kim.
She then noticed a man with a lantern in his hand, staring dumbstruck at them. He was alive. Beside him was a skinny dog, whimpering. Kim approached the man, whose knees were knocking.
"Hi," said Kim.
"Argh! Ghosts!" screamed the man and ran away into the night, his skinny dog chasing after him.
"Strange guy," said Jody.
The trio came up to the gates, and ahead they already see many other ghosts socialising away. Some music and possibly some singing reached the kids' ears.
Jody swung open the gate and the three entered the graveyard. They were greeted by an explosion of music. On a steep hill on the left stood five ghosts, each with an instrument. There was a flutist, a drummer, a bagpipist, a trumpeter and a harpist. They were playing an odd tune that proved to be very catchy to Sakura, who was moving her head to beat of the music.
A pair of owls perched on a dead tree branch and hooted along with the tune. As the kids walked further into the graveyard, they noticed the skeleton of a dog standing on a hill and howling to the moon. Some stray cats meowed and hissed to the tune.
"This place is incredible!" cried Sakura.
"You took the words out of my mouth," replied Kim.
"All it needs now is a king and a queen," joked Jody and then went wide-eyed as he saw and a king and queen sitting on a see-saw, perched on a tombstone.
Behind them was a girl dressed as a princess, swinging on a swing.
Throughout the cemetery, gravestones literally danced about on their own accord, unless spirits underground were trying to break free.
"Hey, do you hear singing?" asked Jody, as they turned a corner in the graveyard.
"Yep. But whose singing?" replied Kim.
"Ask these guys," said Sakura looking stunned.
Jody and Kim looked to their right and saw some sort of stage. On stone pillars were five marble busts. The first had a funny look with large eyebrows; the second's head had fallen off and was laying beside the toppled body; the third wore a bowler hat and smiled brightly; the four was a fat faced man with boggling eyes; and the fifth smiled goofily and has a crack running down the right side of his body. The amazing thing was that the busts were alive and singing.
"When the crypt doors creak and the tombstones quake,
Spooks come out for a swinging wake.
Happy haunts materialise,
And begin to vocalise.
Grim Grinning Ghosts come out to socialise.
Now don't close your eyes and don't try to hide,
For a silly spook may sit by your side.
Shrouded in a daft disguise,
They begin to terrorise.
Grim Grinning Ghosts come out to socialise.
As the moon climbs high over the dead oak tree,
Spooks arrive for the midnight spree.
Creepy creeps with eerie eyes,
Start to shriek and harmonise.
Grim Grinning Ghosts come out to socialise.
When you hear the knell of a requiem bell,
Weird glows gleam where spirits dwell.
Restless bones etherealise.
Rise spooks of every size.
Grim Grinning Ghosts come out to socialise!"
And with that, the bust with the broken head let out a demonic laugh. Kim, Jody and Sakura applauded, and the busts bowed.
"That was wonderful," squealed Sakura, clapping the loudest.
"Thankyou, my dear," said the broken bust. "We are the Phantom Five."
"What? We're the Mallow Men!" shouted the bust wearing the hat.
"We changed are name to the Phantom Five," said the broken bust.
"Since when did you become our leader, Theodore?" asked the fat bust.
"I never did, Ned, you just assumed it," said Theodore.
"Do we have to find again," said the fifth bust.
"Yes!" shouted the rest of the busts.
The fifth busts rolled his eyes to the kids, as the other busts started arguing.
"Sorry about this. I'm Cousin Al. The guy next to be is Ned Nub. The guy next to him is Roll Runkin. The broken guy is my Uncle Theodore and the last guy is Phineas Puck," said the bust.
The other busts looked at the kids, smiled, then went back to arguing.
"Gentleman, from the top!" shouted Al and the other looked at him, and immediately started singing Grim Grinning Ghosts again.
The kids left them to continue singing. Nearby was a table with a bottle of wine on it. A British lord and lady held wine glasses and sang along with the busts in posh British accents.
Further on in the graveyard, there was an old funeral hearse stuck in mud. M.T. Tomb sat beside the hearse, drinking tea. He smiled at the passing kids and then turned to a duchess sitting on top of the hearse, also drinking tea. A coffin had slid out the back of the coffin and into the mud, in it sat a corpse drinking tea, although his hand kept snapping off. Near the foot of the hearse was a floating teapot, tea flowing into a teacup endlessly.
"Lookout!" cried the corpse.
Jody managed to look around in time and threw himself and the girls to the ground as some ghosts on bicycles peddled over and up into the sky.
"Sorry," called on of the bicyclists.
"I guess if you're a ghost, you don't have to follow the rules of the living," said Jody, standing up and then helping the girls.
"Guess not," said Kim.
The three walked on, and noticed an elderly man with a hearing horn and walking stick trying to hear a man dressed in bandages. The man was singing.
"A mummy!" screamed Sakura.
"Where?" asked the mummy, leaping up and looking about dumbly.
"What? I am not a dummy!" cried the old man and bonked the mummy on the head with his hearing horn.
The three kids scampered down the path before they got attacked by the deaf man.
Jody, Kim and Sakura were now at the back of the graveyard, and it appeared some one was singing in opera. Ahead in the shadows stood two people. One was a fat opera singer, she wore a viking helmet and had long ponytails. Beside stood a skinny man with a fake sword buckled to his back, he was singing too. They appeared to be singing Grim Grinning Ghosts in opera.
Sakura covered her ears, as the three of them walked by. The skinny man noticed her and shook the fat woman.
"Carmen, maybe we should be a bit quieter. Our singing is giving that girl a headache!" said the man.
"Very well, Antonio. If you insist," said the woman named Carmen and sang again, only this time quieter.
"I don't see why we have to be the singers, and Rosso and Giovanni get to be the actors," said Antonio, but Carmen did not listen.
Nearby, in a dark crypt, a mysterious shrouded spectre watched the children with glowing red eyes. He turned to a glowing green light,
"Madame Leota, why do you think those brats will be able to set you free from your round prison?" asked the spectre.
"Because, Ub, I know these things, and I am a psychic after all!" bellowed a harsh female voice. "Do not worry. My prediction will come true!"
"If you think so," said Ub and watched the kids disappear around a corner.
Ahead, the kids saw a raised platform and on it stood a knight holding his head and a large fat executioner.
"Greetings, thee younglings!" called the knight.
"Oh for the love Walt Disney!" cried the executioner, turning to the knight. "Giovanni, will you please just stop with this old fashioned talk, it's driving me up the crypt!"
"You could have said sooner, Rosso," said Giovanni thrusting his head forward. "Or are you too afraid you're going to behead me again?"
"It was not me, dufus. It was that idiotic Gus who killed us all!" shouted Rosso.
The two started arguing angrily and then started wrestling, Giovanni's head went flying through the air. Rosso picked up Giovanni's headless body and tossed it down to ground in front of the kids. And seconds later, Giovanni's head crash landed beside the body.
"I'm quite beside myself!" said a shocked Giovanni.
"I am really starting to think I'm gonna wet myself!" said Sakura and dashed on towards a large crypt. Kim and Jody exchanged looks and ran after Sakura. They failed to notice a bricked up tomb with a hand stuck on the outside, holding a trowel.
As the three entered the crypt, a black raven with glowing red eyes landed on a tree branch and it cawed at them. The caws sounded something like, "Beware of hitchhiking ghosts!"
"Holy macaroni! Even the birds can talk!" cried Sakura. "If am reincarnated, then I'm gonna need to see a therapist when I'm older!"
The crypt was a large place. Three mirrors were built into a wall, the outsides coloured a moldy green. Clawed hands poked out of the wall and held unlit candles. As the kids inspected the mirrors, three voices erupted overhead.
"Can they see us?" asked a deep voice.
"No of course not," said a squeaky voice.
"I bet they can see you, Phineas, and you're stupid hat!" cried a third voice.
"Don't listen to him, he's lying!" replied the squeaky voice.
"You wanna say that to my face, Gus?" growled the third voice.
"Bring it on Ezra!" challenged the squeaky voice.
"Hello?" said Kim.
"BOO!" roared a voice and a skeletal face popped out of the middle mirror. Sakura was so scared that she nearly jumped twenty feet into the air.
"Hehehehe! Got ya!" laughed the skeletal man who emerged from the mirror. He wore a derby hat.
"That was not funny!" screamed Sakura, approaching the tall man and looking up at him.
"Oh come on. It was just a gag," said the deep voice and out of the mirror on the left stepped a portly man wearing a tuxedo and a top hat. He carried a carpetbag in his hand.
"Yeah, there's no need to freak out about it girly!" said the squeaky voice and a midget man with a long white beard and a ball and chain appeared.
"Whatever point of view you guys see it as, it was not funny!" cried Sakura.
"That's right," said Kim, backing up Sakura.
"Fine, fine, fine. Sorry. I'm Ezra, by the way," said the skeletal man and lifted his derby hat.
"And I'm Phineas," said the fat man.
"And I am Gus!" cried the bearded man and waved madly at the girls.
"We're the Hitchhiking Ghosts, and you must be the newcomers," declared Ezra.
"You know us?" asked Kim.
"Sure. We're your homies!" said Gus, doing a pose a DJ would do.
"So, you died hitchhiking?" asked Jody.
"Well actually no," said Ezra. "I was crushed by some fat woman at a carnival."
"And I died of lead poisoning," said Phineas.
"And I fell down a well!" laughed Gus. "My death's the weirdest!"
"You poor things," said Kim.
"Not really. I was actually obsessed with obese women," said Ezra, taking off his derby hat, looking guilty.
"And…and I was a chemist that sold fake potions to people…" revealed Phineas.
"And I am a murderer!" sobbed Gus loudly and blew his nose with his beard.
"Okay, now I don't pity you," said Kim, looking amazed.
"Hey, hitchhikers, keep down we'll you! I'm trying to get some sleep here!" came a young voice.
Around a corner came a young girl, about the same age as the kids. She had short ginger hair, green eyes and wore a black cloak with a hood over her head. She looked at the girls and then turned to the hitchhiking ghosts in disgust.
"Oh, Ezra! I never thought you'd be going after woman this young!" cried the girl, then she noticed Jody. Her grumpy looking face loosened out into a dreamy smile.
"And who is this?" the girl said, approaching Jody.
"These are the newcomers," said Phineas, as the cloaked girl circled Jody like shark.
"Who are you?" asked Kim, looking a bit flustered.
"I'm Little Leota," said the girl, not looking at Kim, but continued to examine Jody's body.
"She is a right damn mischief maker, she is!" cried Phineas. "But she got what she deserved. She drowned in a river!"
Little Leota swung around to face Phineas and snatched his hat.
"Hey, give me back my hat!" said Phineas and chased after Little Leota who tossed the hat up onto one of the candleholders.
Ezra easily stretched up one his long arms and retrieved Phineas' hat and plonked it on his head.
Sakura suddenly yawned and literally fell asleep on the spot.
"Looks like Sakura's gone to sleep," said Kim and she and Jody went to help their friend.
"Nice meeting you all," said Jody. He glanced at Little Leota and smirked. She smiled back dreamily and waved.
"Hurry back, hurry back," called Little Leota.
In the house, Jody and Kim walked down a corridor, with a snoozing Sakura. Kim tried to a door, but it was locked. The moved to the next door, it was unlocked!
"Eureka!" cried Kim quietly.
She opened the door and they stepped into room with three beds. They carefully placed Sakura on one bed and then got into their own beds.
"What a day! Talking skeletons, singing busts, a dead bride, hitchhiking ghosts, a weird girl who seems to fancy you, Jody," said Kim.
"You what!" cried Jody.
"Come on its fairly obvious you're a big hit with the girls. You probably fancy that Little Leota, don't you?" said Kim, looking a little upset.
"No way! I don't…" said Jody. "Who do you fancy? Gus?"
"Not in my entire afterlife," snapped Kim.
"Well then who?" asked Jody.
"There's no one, okay! No one!" said Kim, turning over, her face a crimson red. "Now let's get some sleep. Who knows what's gonna happen tomorrow."
"Okay. Good night…" said Jody and he went quiet.
Kim looked up at Jody, who was already asleep. She slumped back down on her pillow, her face full of remorse.
"Jody, if only you knew how I felt…" thought Kim, as she drifted off to sleep.
In another room, the woman in the crystal ball was talking to Ub.
"The child is asleep. She will be most useful to me. The boy is already falling for my daughter, despite the fact she doesn't know she is part of my plan, and the other girl can be easily disposed of. Tomorrow, the girl named Kimberly will meet me and my plan shall begin!" said the woman. "Nothing can go on!"
"But Madame, what if Gracey or the others discover what you are up to?" asked Ub.
"They won't Ub. As long as you keep your mouth shut, then nothing will go wrong!" said the woman. "Now leave me. I must rest."
Ub vanished and the woman closed her eyes and smirked.
Next time, our heroes explore more of the mansion. Kim meets the evil Madame Leota, while Sakura has some fun with the piano phantom. And why does Jody seem a little flustered when he returns from his visit with Little Leota?